Hitachi, Ltd (TSE:6501/NYSE:HIT), one of the world's largest electronics companies 
andThe Fantastic Corporation, a global leader in broadband multimedia, announced 
today that they have agreed to co-develop a Direct-to-Home Multimedia Broadcasting 
Service over satellite for Asia Pacific.

Under the terms of agreement, both companies will co-operate to study and develop 
new exciting media services for today's sophisticated and Internet-savvy consumers 
by first initiating a feasibility study. Fantastic will license its broadband 
content distribution and management software to Hitachi to enable the distribution 
of the content, and will also provide consultation and media expertise to determine 
the effective usage of broadband technologies and multimedia content. Hitachi will 
provide the hardware, facilities and will also engage in a range of initiatives i
n the media and entertainment industry for content aggregation and distribution.

This multimedia broadcasting service aims to deliver all categories of mass market 
digital multimedia content effectively and quickly to Internet enabled devices such 
as PCs, home appliances and set-top boxes. Using the push technology, Fantastic's 
software will enable consumers to receive an enhanced media experience that combines 
entertainment, interactivity, shopping, personalized content and fun. The content 
can be broadcast daily, weekly or on a needed basis through audio/video streaming, 
package delivery or cache delivery.

"We are very excited about this collaboration with Fantastic and its high quality 
Broadband multimedia broadcasting technology. Hitachi will develop businesses such 
as the management of responses with interactive systems, efficient ways to provide 
content, TV-commerce including auctions and so on. Fantastic's management system 
for broadcasting is a very good fit as a basis for our services," said Kimitoshi 
Yamada, General Manager of e-Service & Business Development Hitachi, Ltd.

"The next evolution in the media scene is about to explode with new forms of 
interactive entertainment that tailors to individual consumer's lifestyles, 
convenience and interests -free from the limitations of bandwidth. Just like the 
Internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate globally, we are about to 
witness another mega communication wave with Broadband," said Mr. Tsuneo Sakai, 
President of Fantastic Japan. "We are pleased to be working with Hitachi to 
stimulate this new wave of innovation with media and e-commerce services that 
takes the best of television and Internet - an enriched service that consumers 
can soon experience anytime, anywhere."


This announcement follows a series of successful broadband pilots that Fantastic 
has already conducted globally. One of these recent pilots is done with Telstra 
in Australia, where Broadband channels containing games, news, advertisements 
and live video streaming were constantly broadcast via satellite to PCs at 
selected customer sites throughout Australia over a two-month period. Another 
pilot was conducted with mobile phone leader Nokia, showing handheld devices, 
successfully receiving multimedia content at speeds of 14.95 megabits per second 
- enough to support several simultaneous TV quality video streams in the palm of 
the user's hand. These pilots were based on unidirectional Broadband content 
delivery with dial back options. 

The partners expect that the first services will be available to the consumers 
in the second half of 2001. 


Hitachi, Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is one of the world's leading global 
electronics companies, with fiscal 1999 (ended March 31, 2000) consolidated sales 
of 8,001 billion yen ($75.5 billion*). The company manufactures and markets a wide 
range of products, including computers, semiconductors, consumer products and power 
and industrial equipment. For more information on Hitachi, Ltd., please visit 
Hitachi's Web site at URLwww.hitachi.co.jp
At an exchange rate of 106 yen to the dollar.


The Fantastic Corporation (Zug, Switzerland) is the leading provider of software 
solutions for data broadcasting. This is an emerging communications technology 
which combines point-to-multipoint digital broadcasting with point-to-point 
Internet connectivity, in order to deliver rich interactive media content to PCs, 
digital set-top boxes or handheld devices (including 3G mobile phones) over any 
broadband IP network.

By merging the inherent bandwidth and speed benefits of broadcasting technologies 
with the interactivity of the Internet, data broadcast provides superior content 
distribution and interaction in an increasingly IP-centric world. Fantastic's 
end-to-end software supports the rapid growth of the "data broadcast" industry.

Fantastic's global partners and customers include BT plc, Telecom Italia, 
Deutsche Telekom, Loral Space and Communications, Reuters, Lucent Technologies, 
Intel, Singapore Press Holdings and Inktomi. Fantastic is a public company, 
quoted on the Frankfurt Stock exchange using the symbol: FAN